


. _ . . .

by FujinoLover



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Post-M.I.A., Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:38:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5961040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FujinoLover/pseuds/FujinoLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root was right, Shaw didn’t tell anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	. _ . . .

Shaw blinked awake into darkness. It took her a moment to identify the cause of her apparent blindness as a blindfold wrapped around her head. She reached up, trying to remove it, only to be made aware of the binds keeping her wrists down. Same as her ankles. Her fingers trembled as they bent and felt the smooth surface of leather. So she was lying on her back, blindfolded, and her limbs tied down onto some sort of bed.

She groaned with the realization, burying her head deeper into the pillow. To be honest, it wasn’t the first time for her to wake up in such way, but she couldn’t recall anything leading to this situation she was trapped in. She didn’t have headache or dizziness, yet her thought ran at a sluggish pace. And there was burning pain on her side.

“Hey sweetie.”

Shaw whipped her head to where she believed Root was. Root’s voice had sounded so far, as though Shaw was under the water. She didn’t even notice Root had come closer until she felt pressure on where it burned. She gasped. Her brain welcomed the pain like an old friend amidst the whole confusion.

“Did you miss me?”

Against her usual aloofness, Shaw nodded. It felt like weeks, if not months, since the last time she was with Root. Root rewarded her honesty with more pressure that sent Shaw into a whirlwind ecstasy of pleasure and pain.

The nagging on the far back of her mind remained, though. It told her that something was off—that she couldn’t even tell the cause of the pain in the first place. Did Root try the wax on her? The burning sensation was different somehow and Shaw wouldn’t be in any clothes if wax was at play. It hurt more than stun gun’s burn marks or simple bruises. It was more like broken ribs, or week-old gunshot wounds.

Shaw furrowed her brows. The last things she remembered... Her cover had been blown. That blonde bitch. Elias. John. Bingo hall. Root drugged her.

“You drugged me!” She strained against the bonds, trying to find its weak points. Root should have known that it was impossible to keep her locked up, against her will anyway. “Where’s John?”

“Relax, Sameen.” Root touched Shaw’s arm. In an instant, it stopped her attempt to undo the belts looped around her wrists. “John’s alright.”

But Shaw wasn’t. The contact was a fleeting one and Root’s fingers were warm. It was so wrong because they weren’t usually warm. Shaw would jerk away whenever Root hugged her from behind, long fingers slithered across the skin under her blouse. She would kick her feet away when they were lying together under the covers. Root had cold hands and cold feet.

But Shaw wasn’t sure that it wasn’t Root. She was under the influence of drug; she couldn’t be so sure of anything.

“Are we going to play?” Shaw asked, motioning to herself and the implication of her current state. Her own voice didn’t even sound like it was coming from her. When Root didn’t answer, she added, “Root, please...” She puckered her lips a bit, asking for a kiss.

The warm hand was back on her cheek. She leaned to it, just to be sure. It did smell like Root. The lips that met hers were soft. When she started pulling away, Shaw chased after her and deepened the kiss. Root made a noise deep in her throat—either approval or protest, Shaw couldn’t tell—as tongue parted her lips. Her mouth tasted of bourbon, Root’s choice of drink. Shaw sighed into the kiss. She swept over the upper row of teeth and found something was amiss. Root had a crooked right lateral incisor, this person didn’t. Within second, Shaw jerked back and head-butted ‘Root’.

The pain was immediate. Shaw flinched as it resonated through her skull. Although it hurt, it also gave her mind the much-needed push through the drug-induced fog. She heard better and whoever the person was, they didn’t sound like Root. She grinned. The blindfold ripped off her head; she had to blink several times to adjust her sight. Her smile turned into a smug one as Martine, wiping a bleeding nose, came to view.

“You look better as a blonde.”

Martine grabbed Shaw’s neck, choking her. “Your girlfriend will probably say the same thing.”

 

* * *

 

There was nothing Shaw despised more than being drugged. It made her lose control of her mind and body. Martine caught up with the fact pretty soon, then everyday became drugging days. From sodium thiopenthal to amphetamine, various drugs pumped into Shaw’s system over an uncertain span of time. She had little to no recollection of those days. The only reminder was the serious addiction issue she had to fight when it stopped. Going cold-turkey was a torture of its own.

Shaw held on like a good soldier. They didn’t kill her at the stock exchange—when she was down lying on a growing pool of her own blood and she was sure Root’s cry was going to be the last she heard before Martine’s gun unloaded the bullet that would kill her. Samaritan had wanted her alive then, it still did now. As a source of information, it deemed her as valuable. So she shut her mouth and endured the tortures.

“This is fun.” Shaw gasped, coughing out the water that had accumulated in her mouth. “You should...try...harder.”

The taunt didn’t affect Martine. She slapped the wet rug back on Shaw’s face then signaled the other Decima agent to dump buckets of water at will. Shaw clenched her eyes and mouth shut, but it got inside her nose. The cold liquid burned her nostrils and she spluttered in response. She concentrated on regulating her breathing whenever water wasn’t pouring down on her. She tuned off as best as she could, but no amount of mental strength could stop her body from thinking that she was drowning.

To keep a semblance sense of time, since she had no access to the real world and allowed sleep for four hours only, she converted days into numbers. One to seven. It was day five—waterboarding day.

Shaw had meant every word she said to Martine, about it being fun, because it was the closest she got with a real shower. Even though after the session ended, she would be strapped back on the bed, shivering until her clothes and the sheet dried off. It was hard with the annoying fluorescent lights and the rather low temperature of the room—a subtle method of hypnosis Samaritan employed to brainwash her. It was getting harder as winter began.

Next day, day six, they starved her.

Day seven, they hang her arms on the ceilings.

Day one was by far her favorite day, electro shock.

“Your girlfriend is fond of this.” Martine held a stun gun on Shaw’s shoulder, thumb hovering on the button. “I heard you do too.”

Shaw gave her a roughish grin. “You bet I do.”

Then Martine pressed the button. Electric zap shocked Shaw’s body in that instant. They had stopped drugging her for quite a while, but they kept the cardiac monitor, for Martine’s sick pleasure. Whenever she tased her, it beeped like crazy. In return, Shaw refused to make any sound, not giving any satisfaction for her captors. Martine could dole out all torturing methods she had up on her sleeves and Shaw still wouldn’t make a peep.

She was a good soldier. She was loyal. She shut her mouth. She protected the program. She protected her friends. She kept herself alive. She kept Root alive. The electrode patches buzzed on her skin. Startled, she looked around and realized that she was alone. Day one tended to be shorter, but spontaneous—Martine popped in at random, zapped her, then sauntered out. Shaw couldn’t tell if the day had ended. Just like she couldn’t tell day two and three apart, because they kept her awake to watch the stupid words Samaritan played on the screen. _Correction. Duty. Obedience. Order. Correction. Duty. Obedience. Order. Correction. Duty_ —Just like it was doing at the moment.

Shaw groaned, rolling her eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Samaritan continued to show the words, as if it could do any damage to her. There was nothing she could do about it, though. Restrainer locked her head and neck in place. An agent stood nearby to make sure she didn’t close her eyes for more than a couple seconds or fall asleep—they tased her when she did those. _Obedience. Order. Correction. Duty. Obedience. Order._ She was sometime between day two and three. _Correction. Duty. Obedience. Order._

Then there was the soft buzz on her chest again. Again. Again, again, and again. It was a first. Shaw glanced at the agent from the corner of her eyes, he stared back. He didn’t show any sign of the buzz as his or Samaritan’s doing. The electrode patches were used to pick on the small electrical charge released along with heartbeat so the cardiac monitor could display the data. They weren’t supposed to deliver electricity in the first place. The buzzing was too low to be a machinery or electrical malfunction. Steady and controlled and spaced, as though someone—or _something_ , was doing it on purpose. Something that was not Samaritan. Shaw paid her whole attention to it. It wasn’t long before she deciphered it as Morse Code.

Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

. _ . . .

AS

Two letters sent together with no space in between, a prosign. It read as “wait”.

 _Correction. Duty. Obedience. Order._ Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

 _Correction. Duty. Obedience_ —Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

 _Correction. Duty_ —Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

 _Correction_ —Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Buzz. Longer buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

It was The Machine.

Shaw waited.

The methods had narrowed down to simultaneous starvation, sleep deprivation, random tasing, and the constant repetitive words. Time moved slower, bleeding together into endless torture. The Machine’s message kept her grounded. It came through various outlets—the electrodes buzzing, car alarm going off outside, the flickering lamp. It came only when necessary, to avoid raising suspicion, and always the same word. _Wait_. Shaw longed and dreaded the time when the message would change. Until one morning, during Greer’s daily visit, it did.

“I have no fucking idea where The Machine is. I don’t know how to find it. I won’t tell you shit.”

Greer chuckled. “I’m not here to question you, Miss Shaw. Samaritan had searched through every network device and found nothing. Then I realized that Miss Groves, as The Machine’s analog interface, is the lost link.”

Shaw stiffened at the mention of Root. The God Mode. Her direct connection to The Machine. The cochlear implant. Root held the key to Her whereabouts, Shaw was to key to Root’s heart, and they had Shaw.

“Surely Miss Groves will come running when she has proof that you’re alive. Between you and The Machine, who does she love more?”

Shaw kept quiet. The electrodes buzzed anew on her skin.

_  .  . _ . .  . _ . .

T E L L

“How long do you think it’ll take for her to break if we treat her like we treated you? Especially with the history she shared with Control.”

TELL. TELL. TELL. The Machine continued to prompt her. She was too disoriented to think. It didn’t make sense. Why tell them? Why put everyone in danger? Why after she had waited for so long? Why now? Why?

_Trust me._

TELL.

_The Machine has a plan._

TELL.

“A deal,” Shaw croaked at last. The Machine could have all the grand plans She wanted, but Shaw would never go down without a fight. “I want a deal.”

Greer indulged to her wish.

“Don’t kill Root. Don’t kill her and I’ll tell you everything.”

“You have my word, Miss Shaw.”

TELL.

 

* * *

 

Shaw made an escape during the drive away from the asylum. The car swiveled out of the road, upturned on the edge of the woods. Its driver had a bullet lodged on the side of his neck. His gun a familiar weight on her trembling hand. The snow made funny, scrunching noise under her boots as she trekked back to the city. It reminded her of Alaska—of Root. She was done with taking order from robot overlords. She was done with waiting. She was going home now, to Root.


End file.
